President's Office

Meet the President

As
early as second grade, Dr. Gene C. Fant, Jr. said he wanted to become a college
professor. So far, he’s held not only the position of professor, but also
almost every other academic university position, too. And in February 2017,
North Greenville University named him its eighth president after a nearly
year-long process led by CarterBaldwin Executive Search.

SOUTHERN
ACCENTS, BURR CUTS, AND SOAPY TOOTHBRUSHES

Dr.
Gene C. Fant, Jr. was born in Laurel, Miss., where his grandfather preached on one
side of town and his father on the other. When Gene was four years old, his
father felt called to missions and moved the family to Upstate New York to
plant churches.

In the
Fant household, each week had a sort of routine. You went to school and took
mandatory speech therapy lessons to get rid of your Southern accent on
weekdays. You got a burr cut every Saturday night. You went to church in the
Johnny Carson suit factory on Sundays. And, any day of the week, you had to
soap up your toothbrush and brush your teeth out for cussing.

Gene
says he had a “salty sailor” mouth back then, even at the age of five. He’ll
never forget one particular day when his dad caught him letting out a
four-letter word.

“We
went upstairs for what I thought was going to be the punishment, and when we
got to the bathroom, my dad soaped up his toothbrush. And he said, ‘I want you
to know this is what Jesus did for you. He took the punishment that you
deserved,’” Gene remembers.

Gene
took this illustration to heart. Afterwards, he and his father sat down to
talk, and Gene prayed to receive Christ.

THE
FANT FAMILY BAND

When
Gene was 11, his family moved again, this time to Hampton, Va., where his
father served as pastor at Ivy Memorial Baptist Church. At church, Gene was
known for playing sports — and “going nuts” over calls he didn’t like, he
admits — and playing music, too.

When
Gene’s dad travelled to preach revivals, the whole family would tag along to
provide the worship. Gene played bass and his younger brother played guitar to
accompany their gospel singer-songwriter mother, whose stage name was Mona
Faith.

After
graduating from high school in 1981, Gene went on to earn his bachelor’s degree
at James Madison University and, immediately following, his master’s degree at
Old Dominion University. Right after that, he started teaching for Gloucester
County Public Schools in Virginia.

While
waiting to take his TB test at new teacher orientation, Gene couldn’t help but
notice the girl standing in line beside him: Lisa Williams.

“I’m
left handed. So I rolled up my right sleeve to get the tuberculosis test. She’s
right handed, so she had, well . . . she had a sundress on,” he grins, then
pauses. “I had my arm out. She had her arm out, and it was brown,” he says,
holding out the word “brown.”

“Okay,
okay,” Lisa interrupts, blushing and moving the story along.

She
noticed him, too; of course, he was hard to miss, with his bright paisley print
Ralph Lauren tie.

“I
liked his tie. It was the ’80s, so it was the age of those, you know, very
colorful ties,” she laughs.

At the
orientation luncheon, they sat together. When Gene found out Lisa had graduated
from Baptist university Carson- Newman, he became even more interested in her.

Gene
had just moved into town, but he already knew where to go to church the next
Sunday: one of the local churches where his family band had played. To his
surprise, he ran into Lisa again.

“I
walked into church on that Sunday morning, and there they all were: her and her
cousin and all their friends,” he says. “I knew I had moved to the Promised
Land at that point.”

Gene
and Lisa began dating right away. One year later, they got engaged, and then
they married in 1989.

FROM
“PROFESSIONAL STUDENT” TO PROFESSOR

Gene’s
family always loved reading and learning. That love stuck with him, and even
after finishing two degrees, he wanted to go back to school. For the next
several years, in fact, both Gene and Lisa continued to earn numerous degrees.
Between the two of them, they hold seven.

After
nine years of marriage, the couple had twins: Ethan and Emily. Around this same
time, many of Gene’s friends and colleagues began recommending that he should
become a university president.

“I’m
the beneficiary of people who have seen things in me that I did not see in
myself,” he reflects.

As an
example, he says his boss at the University of Southern Mississippi pulled him
aside on his last day of work. He told Gene he thought he might become a
university president one day, so they needed to talk.

“It was
actually a pretty scary conversation, because it’s a big job. At a Christian
college, in particular, you bear the burden of making sure that the mission is
not lost on your watch,” he says. “So I’ve tried to be intentional. I always
want to do the job I’m doing, but prepare for whatever might come next.”

After
that conversation in 1995, Gene continued to advance in the ranks of the
university. On the academic level, he has served as a graduate teaching fellow,
assistant professor, full professor, department chair, college dean, vice
president, and executive vice president. Most recently, he served as provost
and chief academic officer at Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBA).

But in
some moments, he felt he couldn’t move forward. After serving as English
Department chair at Mississippi College, for instance, he moved “not up but
over” to the same position at Union University. Again, he later served as chief
academic officer at Union then shifted to the same position at PBA.

“I felt
strongly that God would guide our steps, even if the steps were sideways rather
than forward. I just wanted to be in positions where I could learn something
new and serve others,” he says. “God’s been faithful to provide those places,
and now it feels like they have prepared me specifically for NGU.”

COMING
TO NGU

Gene
first heard about NGU through classmates in seminary, and since then, he’s
continued running into NGU alumni throughout his career. On his way home from a
summer vacation in Asheville, N.C. in July 2016, he and his family decided to
pay their first visit to the campus. Gene had heard the university was in
search of a new president, but he hadn’t given the opportunity much thought.

The
Fants looped around NGU’s campus, admiring the mountain views, and then stopped
to fill up at the Tigerville General Store. While there, they asked a youth
pastor who was on campus for FUGE what he knew about NGU.

“He
said, ‘Oh, it’s a great school. They do a wonderful job of educating students
and helping them to grow in Jesus,’” Gene recalls. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s a
pretty good answer.’”

Several
of Gene’s friends encouraged him to apply for the position of president at NGU,
which he did at the end of the summer. Gene says he and Lisa use a principle
they learned from Henry Blackaby to make decisions together. They always ask
two questions about an open opportunity: “Is God’s Spirit at work here?” and
“Can I join in that effort?” Both felt that the answers were “yes” at NGU.

Gene
could tell the Presidential Search Committee had a unity he hadn’t seen before;
this was one way he knew God was working. That same unity was evident when the
Board of Trustees met on Feb. 23, 2017, and, in a unanimous vote, elected Gene
to become NGU’s eighth president.

At the
official announcement press conference, Gene revealed that one of the most
influential leadership books he’s read is “Renovate Before You Innovate” by
Sergio Zyman. He foresees a period of great growth at NGU and plans to “fix any
fissures or cracks in the foundation” before building on it. He’s very clear
that he would like to fortify NGU’s programs to ensure the university sends out
“transformational leaders” who are able not only to share the gospel, but also
to use specific trades, such as economics and medicine, to minister.

“If we
produce hundreds of students each year who are engaged in the community and the
local church, then we’ll have an opportunity to really impact the larger
culture — not just in South Carolina and not just in the U.S., but around the world,”
he says.

As Gene
and his wife move to the Greenville area from their home in Jupiter, Fla.,
their twins will finish a gap year with Impact 360 Institute in Atlanta, Ga., a
worldview and leadership education foundation Gene has worked with since 2004.

His
term as president at NGU officially begins on June 1, 2017 — just in time for a
special celebration of the institution’s 125th anniversary throughout the
2017-18 academic year.

“NGU
family should be excited just because God’s doing something. As humans, we
don’t get to know what all of that is. Sometimes we don’t even get to know what
that is in our lifetimes,” says Gene. “But when we know we’re about God’s
business, when we know we’re doing something as a shared community, when we
know we’re meeting the needs of others and changing the way they think about
themselves and even about God, that’s a pretty exciting time to be in.”